Small Steps to make things easier...time to eat!

Sometimes it is small little changes that need to be implemented or tweaked to help moms save a bit more sanity. After I got our dinner preparations running a bit more smoothly, there was something else that was not quite right.

It may have looked right. Table set (check). Family at the table (check). Everyone with food at their place (check). Say a prayer (check). We would sit down to eat and everything would be blissful for 1 minute and 20 seconds. Then the chorus of, "Can I have more bread? I need more milk. I want more broccoli" (Ok not so much on this last one ;-) But the point being, all of the food needed for refills was still in the kitchen. I would just fill the plates out in the kitchen before we ate and carry them in all filled. It may have saved me from doing extra dishes later, but the constant up and down and refilling this in that was really getting to be absurd.

Our meals are now served family style. All the food is put on the table (in those extra dishes *sigh*), but here is how our eating habits have changed. We pass, we take what we want, we take turns, we slow down and we show our manners as we ask for more of something. Dinner has now been relaxed state of affair and more of a give and take.

Now if I could just come up with a way to keep 19 month old Max from throwing noodles across the table to Lucy or dropping food for an imaginary dog under the table.

small steps. small steps...